California Polytechnic University At San Luis Obispo

When officials at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo scheduled a free lecture by bestselling author Michael Pollan, they envisioned a lively talk about sustainable food, along with Pollan's customary critiques of agribusiness. What they didn't expect was a wave of denunciations from angry farming and ranching alumni who rank Pollan as a force only slightly less damaging to agriculture than the Mediterranean fruit fly. Threatening to pull his donations, the head of one of California's biggest ranching operations succeeded in turning today's planned lecture into a panel discussion involving Pollan, a meat-science expert, and a major grower of organic lettuce.

Rob Neal was dealt a raw deal, but his days of dwelling on misfortune are over and a professional career once again may be in the cards. Neal has a bat in his hands again, and that always was an uplifting experience. And he is Cal Poly San Luis Obispo's right fielder, as opposed to the team's designated hitter. Which makes all the difference in the world of professional baseball.

Computer rankings aren't something that most Division I basketball coaches boast about. After all, if your team's not good enough for a real ranking--of the Associated Press or USA Today variety--you probably shouldn't be bragging about it. But at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, people are proud to announce to anyone who asks that the Mustangs are now No. 222 in the nationally recognized Jeff Sagarin computer rankings.

Business seems to be good at the Madonna Inn, just off U.S. 101, where visitors can spend the night in a room that might look like a cave, a jungle safari tent or something out of a sultan's palace. It's not Caesars Palace, but if you're really interested, Hearst Castle is less than an hour away. A farmers' market takes over San Luis Obispo's quaint downtown every Thursday night on Higuera Street.

When it feels as if Neal Mason is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders it is usually because the opponent on his back is attempting to push his face into a wrestling mat. Not this week. Mason lately bears a far-more-cumbersome load. He thinks about the sacrifices he's made. The miles he's run. The meals he's missed. "The hours sitting on a bike going nowhere," he recalls. To what end? To this end.

Ventura College men's basketball Coach Philip Mathews said Thursday he is not one of the finalists for the vacant coaching position at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Mathews, also the Ventura athletic director, said Cal Poly athletic officials spoke to him about the job but didn't call him for a follow-up interview. "They came down and talked to me but that's it," Mathews said. "That was a couple of weeks ago, before the (NCAA) Final Four."

Founded in 1901, Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, is now in many ways a thoroughly contemporary campus, but the hills surrounding the school still retain their turn-of-the-century pastoral look. Although the university has long since progressed past its "Cow Poly" nickname, the school still boasts a large agriculture department. Behind the campus buildings are ranch houses, livestock pens and grassy slopes grazed by cows.

Philip Mathews, who coached the Ventura College men's basketball team to the junior college state title this season, said he has been contacted by officials at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo about the school's vacant coaching position. "They have asked me if I'm interested," Mathews said. "I'm interested in talking, but I haven't decided anything."

If Cal Poly San Luis Obispo had wanted to start an engineering program for a university in someplace like Norway, the proposal probably would have sailed through without much comment either on campus or off. But the school's plan to start an engineering department in Saudi Arabia is a different story.

Officials at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo announced a $60-million pledge to the school's architecture department Wednesday, calling it the largest gift in the history of the California State University system. The anonymous donation is from a "very, very successful entrepreneur" who studied architecture at the school until financial difficulties forced him to drop out, said Henri T. de Hahn, head of Cal Poly's 850-student architecture department.